Introduction
The materials used in the construction of chess boards are as varied as those used for making chess pieces and the two are generally complementary in nature.
In this article, we present some of the most common materials that chess boards are made from.
Note: Unless otherwise stated, our chess boards are made of various "core" hardwoods, with hardwood veneers - this allows us to offer chess boards finished in smooth, exotic hardwoods for a fraction of the cost of boards hewn from solid wood.
Our complementary article All about chess pieces investigates the materials commonly used to make chess pieces.
Index: Maple  Rosewood Hazelnut Walnut Bubinga Madrona Mahogany Ebony Ash
Burl & Briar Wood| ---------------------------------------- | Top |  |
Chess Boards - Materials
Maple
 |  | Maple tree and cut sheet |
Maple is a pale wood with good hardness and excellent polishing characteristics.
Sugar maple is the hardest form of maple, witnessed by the fact that bowling alley lanes and pins are often made of this wood!
The grain of maple is usually straight, with a relatively coarse texture - in fact, maple often has virtually no visible grain at all.
Chess boards usually use the pale slightly off-white variety of maple for the "white" squares.
For the darker squares, the maple is often stained with a wood dye, or combined with other woods such as bubinga, rosewood, hazelnut etc.
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Rosewood
 |  | Rosewood tree and grain |
Rosewood grows in many subtropical climates and varies in color from light rose to dark brown, often with darker streaks. Rosewood is also used in the manufacture of top quality chess pieces.
For examples see: Rosewood chess pieces and Bud rosewood chess pieces| ---------------------------------------- | Top | |
Hazelnut
Hazelnut refers to trees and shrubs of the genus corylus and which bear edible nuts enclosed in a leafy husk. Hazelnut prefers regions with moist, warm winters and cool summers. For this reason, most production comes from areas near large bodies of water at mid latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere such as around the Black Sea in Turkey and the Atlantic Coast in France.
The wood itself is light brown and often richly detailed with flowing, almost ethereal patterns of darker brown graining.
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Walnut
 |  | Walnut Trees |
Walnuts belong to the family uglandaceae and are deciduous trees, 10-40 meters in height, with pinnate leaves 20-90cm in length.
Colors range from creamy white in the sapwood to a dark chocolate color in the heartwood.
The wood is hard, dense, tightly grained and polishes to a very smooth finish.
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Bubinga
Bubinga (aka kevazingo) is the name for timber from the genus Guibourtia, which contains 16 or 17 species and are found mainly in Equatorial Africa, from southeast Nigeria through Cameroon and Gabon, to the Congo region. They proliferate mainly in swampy habitats, near rivers and lakeshores.
Bubinga wood is fairly rare and exclusive and has an appearance similar to light rosewood, although the grain tends to have less contrast and is often more random.
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Madrona
 | Madrona Trees |
North American members of the genus arbutus are called Madrones, the name deriving from the Spanish word madroņo.
Madrones are evergreens, standing anywhere from 5-25m tall and are native to the temperate regions of the Mediterranean, Western Europe and the Pacific coasts of North America.
Madrona has a smooth red bark and the mature wood beneath has a greenish, silvery appearance, with a satin smoothness.
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Mahogany
Mahogany is often used in furniture making due to its rich, warm reddish brown color, tight grain and smooth finish.
The grain of the wood is usually straight and plain, but sometimes exhibits swirls and ripples.
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Ebony
Ebony is also frequently used to make high end chess pieces - see Ebony chess pieces for example.
Being an exceptionally hard wood also makes ebony fairly brittle, so it needs to be handled with due care.
Our ebony chess boards are uniquely smooth to the touch and polish to a wonderful finish.
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Ash
Ash is a straight-grained wood with a very high strength to weight ratio, and as such has been the wood of choice for baseball bats, hockey sticks and canoe paddles.
It takes a stain particularly well, as shown by our black/ash chess board below, which exhibits wonderfully smooth and deep, almost ebony-like blacks.
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Burl & Briar Woods
Burl wood
The term "burl wood" does not refer to a specific type of wood as such, but alludes to the fact that the wood has been obtained from a specific section of a tree, often one which exhibits the most spectacular graining.
Burl wood actually comes from deformed growths either on or within the trees - often caused by injury, infection, or abnormal tree cell division. This causes various twists, turns and knots in the wood fiber, resulting in random and fascinating patterns when cut.
A "burl" is really just a nice name for a cancerous growth on a tree, and burl wood is often darker, and in some cases, a completely different color compared to the rest of the tree.
Briar wood is the name given to root wood from trees of the genus Erica arborea, and is similar to burl wood in that it usually exhibits stunning grain patterns.
 |  | | A large tree burl | A sheet of chestnut burl wood |
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